Documents

The report sets out the UNCTAD assessment of the COVID-19 impacts on the maritime supply chain and challenges faced. It also identifies response measures introduced by relevant stakeholders, and the lessons learned in terms of resilience-building and implications for the maritime supply chain of the future.

This report covers the results of a pilot project in the implementation of: (a) the recommendations of the 2019 and 2020 Odessa trade facilitation seminars of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to support the development of digital multimodal transport corridors to increase the harmonization and standardization of data exchange in international transport, trade and logistics to encourage electronic data exchange and thereby to reduce person-to-person contacts during the COVID-19 crisis and in the post-pandemic recovery, using relevant standards of the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT), a subsidiary body of the UNECE.

The aim is to foster the harmonization of electronic data sharing using global (UN/CEFACT) standards for transport, trade and logistics, and to prepare standards for e-documents based on the UN/CEFACT semantic standards and reference data models. The focus will be on the development of electronic document equivalents for the documents mentioned above, using UN/CEFACT tools in the countries developing a digital multimodal transport corridor.

The Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has hit international trade worldwide and in Asia and the Pacific, underscoring the importance of maintaining trade connectivity not only for the immediate pandemic response, but also for the subsequent recovery efforts in order to build resilience to future disruptions. The report first describes, in the section II, the initial developments and lessons learnt in trade and transport facilitation practices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Section III presents the results of a Survey on trade facilitation in times of crisis and pandemic in the Asia and the Pacific region. Finally, Section IV discusses the ways forward for trade facilitation measures to support a sustainable and resilient recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and how the Asia-Pacific region can be better equipped to build back better. 

Given their geographic situation, landlocked developing countries have been hit doubly hard by the cross-border processes implemented to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

This research provides a detailed explanation of the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the areas of international trade and transport adopted by the Governments of the Plurinational State of Bolivia and of Paraguay to limit the effects of the pandemic on trade operations and supply chains in their countries. It also provides a set of policy recommendations to preserve and improve trade facilitation and transport connectivity with transit countries in the framework of Vienna Programme of Action for Landlocked Developing Countries for the Decade 2014–2024.

Given their small size and geographic isolation, Caribbean countries are highly reliant on trade and tourism as important sources of income and employment. Lockdowns in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic have left islands closed, airports without flights, hotels shuttered, cruise ships docked in ports and economies in crisis.

This research provides a detailed explanation of the responses to COVID-19 in the areas of international trade and transport adopted by English-speaking countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to limit the effects of the pandemic on trade operations and supply chains in the region. It also provides a set of policy recommendations to preserve and improve trade and transport connectivity in the Caribbean basin.

This report has been prepared in line with the ESCAP framework on socio-economic response to COVID-19 and as part of the activities of the UNDA project “Transport and trade connectivity in the age of pandemics: contactless, seamless and collaborative UN solutions”.